environmental education does not advocate a particular new point of course of action but rather teaches individuals how to weigh various sides of an issue through critical thinking and it enhances their own problem solving and decision making skills

I accept this debate. Because there was no formal structure given here, I will put my argument for Round 1 below.

While environmental education is an important element of the solution to waste management problems, it does not provide the sole solution to the problem. The root cause of our waste management problems lies in the ease at which corporations and citizens are legally (or with virtually no negative legal consequences) able to litter and provide inadequately efficient disposal methods for garbage and dangerous waste. While prosecuting citizens from littering is ridiculous, removing the possibility of federal punishment for the exposure of citizens and wild animals to high quantities of dangerous, carcinogenic, and often deadly chemicals and waste is absolutely ludicrous.

As an example for a situation in which a corporation, despite having many employees who had some sort of environmental education, chose to attempt to cheat federal regulations on waste emissions, I will use the recent Volkswagen scandal. Last September, Volkswagen was discovered to have been installing a "defeat device" in many of its cars to cheat U.S. emissions tests (about 480 thousand in the U.S, and about 11 million worldwide). Prior to that scandal, Volkswagen had been marketing its new versions of diesel cars as some of the most environmentally friendly, fuel efficient automobiles on the market. Ironically, its actual nitrogen oxide outputs have been more than 40 times over U.S. fuel regulation levels.

As of last September, Volkswagen was engaged in over 34 class-action lawsuits regarding its cars, and the whole scandal has cost the corporation massive amounts of money and a significant amount of public respect and trust. The amount of federal and public opposition to Volkswagen's actions is justified and positive, and it will hopefully make it less inclined to partake in similar actions in the future.

Under your system, this scandal would have had much fewer negative effects on Volkswagen, and, as such, the corporation would have been more inclined to commit environmental crime in the future in order to widen its margin profits. Under the same system, Volkswagen would not have been subject to anywhere near as many fines, lawsuits, and overall criticism as it currently is under. That would have been an absolute tragedy -- the company would have gotten away with fraud.

While environmental education may have a significant individual impact on the population, corporations exist not to satisfy individual environmental concerns but to make money. If cutting corners and cheating tests will widen their margin profits with few negative consequences, our problem regarding waste management will only increase in magnitude. You cannot assume or expect that corporate entities will, on their own, substitute long, painstaking research and development on environmental solutions that will, in the long run, not make them much of a profit, in exchange for cheaply manufactured, environmentally detrimental products that widen corporate profits. There needs to be some regulation, some system of rules to keep our industrial system environmentally friendly.

Again, as I mentioned in the beginning, I concede that environmental education is massively important. I also agree with the point that widening the public environmental education will significantly help individuals understand and acknowledge current environmental waste problems. But without the presence of consequences for endangering the populace with improper waste disposal techniques, corporations will take advantage of the lack of regulations and detrimentally impact our environment.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to do. I was hoping that the instigator was serious, but I guess not...

Anyway, hopefully my argument was understood. I hold my position that, while environmental education is an important element in environmental protection, environmental crime needs to be defined and enforced so that larger corporate entities do not take advantage of legal leeways.